It's getting cloudier over at Hewlett-Packard. On Wednesday, HP announced new additions to its Converged Cloud portfolio that deepen its position in the OpenStack camp and position the company as a facilitator for hybrid clouds in the .

HP's announcements focused on its next phase of OpenStack-based architecture for its private, managed and public offerings, as well as new and services for cloud implementations. In its announcements, HP noted research it had commissioned, which found that "it is expected to be a hybrid world," with 75 percent of enterprise IT to be "delivered across private, managed and public clouds" within three years.

The HP Cloud OS is a platform that utilizes OpenStack and is designed for management across hybrid clouds. CloudSystem, its private cloud software, currently uses HP Cloud OS, and a new CloudSystem Enterprise Starter Suite is now being offered. The suite provides a bundled solution for rapidly providing cloud services, and the company said it reduces up-front costs by as much as 20 percent.

HP Cloud OS

HP Cloud OS will also be offered on HP Moonshot servers and used in HP Cloud Services. While based on the open source Open Stack software, the HP Cloud OS offers such enhanced features as a streamlined installation process, automatic upgrading, and the ability to move workloads between an on-premises cloud and an HP cloud service. The company said the enhancements were being added through plug-ins, not through a modification of OpenStack. A Cloud OS Sandbox will be offered to customers for trying things out, at no cost.

The company is also now offering its Converged Cloud Professional Services Suite, which include support, design and networking services, Proactive Care for CloudSystem, risk consulting and an enhanced HP Applications Transformation to Cloud Services.

Meanwhile, HP Enterprise Services has upped its game for cloud services, especially for customer needs in and enterprise applications. New offerings now include Enterprise Services for cloud-based Enterprise Applications, private clouds, and service risk and control.

Data Center Management Model

Charles King, an analyst with Pund-IT, said HP's moves were reflecting cloud computing's growing role "as a data center management model." He also noted there were different interpretations of what the mix of public, private and hybrid uses would be, with companies choosing the environment more because of applications than because of usage.

"There are certain applications and data that enterprises will never let go outside the data center," he said, such as business-critical applications. He also cited a recent study conducted by IDC for EMC, which found that, by 2016, 78 percent of enterprise cloud workloads will be in private clouds, with the rest in public and hybrid ones.

Over at Red Hat, the OpenStack Cloud Infrastructure Partner Network has moved beyond its early adopter program, and it now boasts more than 100 global technology partners, including Dell, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Juniper Networks, Lenovo, Lockheed Martin, NEC and others.

The Partner Network provides training in Red Hat OpenStack technologies. The company is also offering a Red Hat OpenStack Certification and, to provide certified technologies and products, the Red Hat Certified Solution Marketplace.

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